Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.

The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim OBrien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.

Taught everywhere&#8212;from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing&#8212;it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing.

The Things They Carried won France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize; it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Synopsis:

A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.

Synopsis:

A classic, life-changing meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling, with more than two-million copies in print

Depicting the men of Alpha Company&#8212;Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim OBrien, who survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three&#8212;the stories in The Things They Carried opened our eyes to the nature of war in a way we will never forget. It is taught everywhere, from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing, and in the decades since its publication it has never failed to challenge our perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, and courage, longing, and fear.

About the Author

Tim OBrien received the 1979 National Book Award in fiction for Going After Cacciato. Among his other books are the acclaimed novels In the Lake of the Woods, Tomcat in Love, If I Die in a Combat Zone, and July, July. In the Lake of the Woods received the James Fenimore Cooper Prize from the Society of American Historians and was named Time magazine's best novel of the year.

Table of Contents

Things they carried — Love — Spin — On the Rainy River — Enemies — Friends — How to tell a true war story — Dentist — Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong — Stockings — Church — Man I killed — Ambush — Style — Speaking of courage — Notes — In the field — Good form — Field trip — Ghost soldiers — Night life — Lives of the dead.

A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.

"Synopsis"
by Firebrand,
A classic, life-changing meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling, with more than two-million copies in print

Depicting the men of Alpha Company&#8212;Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim OBrien, who survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three&#8212;the stories in The Things They Carried opened our eyes to the nature of war in a way we will never forget. It is taught everywhere, from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing, and in the decades since its publication it has never failed to challenge our perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, and courage, longing, and fear.

Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and gifts — here at Powells.com.